


06. 13. '20. 10:24pm

by iirusu



Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Brief Panic, Crying, Dissociation, Hinted Trauma, No Dialogue, POV First Person, Set in Colorado
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24720817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iirusu/pseuds/iirusu
Summary: I want it to be quiet, and I want us to only think about the marigold gardens back in California. I want us only to think of when I ate the petals and got told off in mom’s garden, and I want us to only think of collecting small green apples under the colossal oak tree in the backyard.I don’t want to think of this. I don’t want to think of the basement.
Series: Where the Geese Fly and Bulls Cry [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785916





	06. 13. '20. 10:24pm

**Author's Note:**

> ⌦ Just a quick warning, this chapter includes descriptions of dissociation and hints at trauma, so if you're uncomfortable reading any of that then please don't read! ⌫

I’m terrified. I’m leaned against a wall bathed in light with a calendar’s edge digging into my back, and I’m terrified. It’s been a while since I’ve been like this, unable to physically have a conversation with you, because you’re so far inside today. We’re not at home today- _visiting family-_ and she’s here. My sister is here, and she had hugged me so tightly and held my face with such care earlier that it made me sick. I’m sick to my stomach. I’m trying to talk to you, I’m really trying to talk, sending you messages and letting me voice slip through occasionally- _anything_ to get your attention- but I know that you’re hiding just as I want to. And so, I’m sliding down the wall, tears streaking down my face because I’m so scared. And confused. I can’t really tell what I’m feeling. 

My whole body starts tingling now, and I’m clearing my throat as I sit and catch my breath. I feel too tired to breathe. I wonder how she can act so loving, so kind, when we both know what happened before. Our early years are so loud. I’m here wishing I had never pried in the House of Windsor. Maybe you wouldn’t have been so afraid here today if I had never pulled it back to the surface, but I just so desperately wanted to know. What else are you hiding? You’re so vague. I feel so vague. I feel my hands tingling and I don’t think that they are a part of my body anymore. Usually, I’d think my hands are important, but right now they don’t need to be. They don’t need to be anything. 

Now I’m thinking about hands, and her hands, sliding over the concrete walls of the basement, and _oh,_ now mine feel far too connected to me and I’m choking again because I’m just so disgusted. I want you to come out, I want to just be you entirely, with nothing of my body to show anymore. I want it to be quiet, and I want us to only think about the marigold gardens back in California. I want us only to think of when I ate the petals and got told off in mom’s garden, and I want us to only think of collecting small green apples under the colossal oak tree in the backyard. 

I don’t want to think of this. I don’t want to think of the basement. But here I am, locked in the bathroom for what now marks twenty minutes, and I’m still just as unprepared to come out as I was ten before. I grip a towel rack to my right and force myself onto my feet, clenching my jaw in irritation when the calendar on the wall scrapes against my back in the movement. I try to look at myself in the mirror. It’s hard without my glasses- they lay with smudged lenses on the floor- but I try to look. I don’t think I’m part of myself right now. Or anymore, even. I briefly think ‘anymore’ sounds better. I’m still scared, and I can smell her in here, but everything quiets down when the tingling returns to my hands. I’m not thinking about it anymore. I’m not thinking about anything anymore, just feeling my numbing hands and staring at myself. 

I feel out of place, and I think I like that feeling. I don’t belong in this house, I don’t belong in this bathroom, and telling myself that brings me comfort. She doesn't exist as soon as I step outside. I dig into my back pocket for a small Ziploc of Aleve, and I take the pill dry. My ears are ringing. I know my head is pounding but I can barely feel it now with as cloudy as it is. I wipe under my eyes and the tears press into my skin like a cheap moisturizer. I’m thinking that it would be uncomfortable, but I don’t really care right then. When I deem my cleanup sufficient, I leave the bathroom, tell a guest that I don’t feel well, and I take my leave. It’s so much easier to breathe outside, and I feel my head sort of falling out of its fuzzy haze when the cool air sets in. 

I get into my car and drive, and though I feel more attached I still feel some absence in my mind, and so I decide to drive far away to the small ice cream shack in town that I hope is still here. I pull into the parking lot fronting the pond and only then do I realize I’d left my glasses on the bathroom floor in her house when I can’t read the parking sign in front of me. I don’t go back. And I don’t get ice cream either. I don’t need my glasses to see that it’s gone, filled in by houses. I pull out of the parking lot and start driving home, hoping you’ll be there waiting for me.

**Author's Note:**

> In the middle of writing, I decided it would get confusing if both the mind and the sister were "you" and it felt strange directly addressing her, so I decided that the sister would be "her" and the mind would be "you."


End file.
